Women's and Gender Studies

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University of Detroit Mercy's Women's and Gender Studies (WGS) Program is a diversity and social-justice-focused area of study that examines how our beliefs about gender and sexuality shape our personal identities and the world we live in. The program also examines how gender and sexuality intersect with other facets of our identities such as race, class, nationality, ability and age. WGS draws on many academic disciplines to ask questions about the roles gender and sexuality play in key areas of the human experience such as:

The WGS Program offers a multifaceted approach for students to discover, engage and transform through the lens of women's and gender issues:

Academic Minor: This 18-credit minor creates an academic foundation for students to develop their abilities to critically examine the place of women and gender in culture and society.

Social Justice Activism: WGS sponsors activities that promote awareness of important local, national and global issues; raise monies to support social change and enable students to contribute their time and talents to causes important to them.﻿

Grants: WGS provides grants to students and faculty related to events and projects focused on gender and sexuality. Read more about this below.

Events/Speakers: WGS brings local and national speakers to campus on a variety of topics including hip hop; marriage equality; activist journalism; gender, race and history; sexual consent; violence and sports; and global feminism.

Arts: Arts programming around WGS issues includes plays, films, concerts and international art shows. WGS minors students attend these events for free and often have special opportunities to meet and talk with the artists.

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WGS Minor

The WGS Minor is highly flexible and can be tailored to your personal, academic and professional interests. All students take WGS 2000: Gender, Sex, and Justice and choose five additional courses from a range of academic disciplines. The WGS minor can complement a wide variety of majors in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.

Many of our most popular WGS Courses also fulfill your Detroit Mercy Core Curriculum requirements so you can earn a WGS minor without taking a lot of extra classes! This is a great option for students with demanding majors or who want to earn more than one minor.

Drs. Gash and Groh will be presenting on their research project, “The effect of suicide on the lives of the women of Guyana: a qualitative study.” Dr. Presbey will be presenting on her research project, “The role of the British suffragettes in influencing women’s nonviolent protest in South Africa, 1907-1913.”

The presentations will be followed by Q & A. Refreshments. For further information, please contact Rosemary Weatherston, Director, Women's & Gender Studies Program, 313-993-1083 or weatherr@udmercy.edu.

Thursday, October 6, 2016 | 6:30-8:30 p.m. | President's Dining RoomWomen, Leadership and the Church: Authority, Power or Service

An alumna of both Marygrove College (B.A.) and the University of Detroit (Master of Theology), Sr. Sharon Holland served for 21 years as a canon lawyer in Rome, becoming one of the highest ranking women in the Vatican. She has also served as President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States representing nearly 80 percent of women religious in this country. Her extensive and varied leadership roles provide her with a uniquely insightful perspective from which to consider contemporary landscapes of gender and U.S. and global Catholicism.

Drawing on the history of women leaders in the Church, Sr. Holland will ask us to consider the relationships between leadership, authority, power, and service. She will also discuss changes in Church law opening more roles to women, and reflect on the new Commission on the Diaconate of Women, created by Pope Francis to study the possibility of women serving as deacons in the Catholic Church. Her talk will be followed by a Q&A session.

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information, please contact Rosemary Weatherston, Director, Women's & Gender Studies Program, 313-993-1083 or weatherr@udmercy.edu..

Grants

Jane Schaberg WGS Student Grants

The Jane Schaberg WGS Student Grants are named in honor of the late Jane Schaberg, professor emerita of Religious Studies, who helped found and direct the WGS program at University of Detroit Mercy. These yearly grants of up to $250 are awarded to current Detroit Mercy students and student organizations in support of activities, projects, and academic work that provide the University's students with opportunities to engage with women's and gender issues throughout the academic year. Activities, projects, and academic work which examine women’s and gender issues in connection with culture, race, class or sexuality are welcome. Possible activities, projects, and academic work might include but are not limited to:

Speaker honorariums

Service learning projects

Student-sponsored movie nights

Refreshments for WGS-oriented events

Travel to conferences to present WGS-related academic work

Purchasing books or other supplies for class or individual student projects

Purchasing supplies for community-based projects .

Successful applicants are required to create a presentation poster of their project and present it to members of the WGS program within 30 days of the project's completion. WGS will fund the printing of the poster. All grant work must be completed and final paperwork submitted by June 3 of the academic year in which the grant is received. If you have questions about the grant or would like to discuss your ideas before applying, please contact Rosemary Weatherston, Director of WGS, at weatherr@udmercy.edu or 313-993-1083. All inquiries are welcome.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Students complete a one-page application form, which can be obtained by contacting Rosemary Weatherston at weatherr@udmercy.edu. Applications are due in October.

WGS Feminist Scholarship Grants

Application Guidelines

The University of Detroit Mercy Women’s and Gender Studies Program is now accepting applications for the 2016-17 Feminist Scholarship Grants (FSG). These yearly grants of up to $500 are awarded to current full-time, part-time, and adjunct faculty members to support scholarly projects which critically examine the place of women and/or gender in culture and society. Consideration will be given to projects which use feminist and gender theory to analyze the origins and effects of power, dominance, and gender roles and relations. Projects which examine women’s and gender issues in connection with examination of race, class, and/or sexuality are also welcome.

Applications will be accepted for scholarly projects which are in the beginning, middle, and concluding stages of completion. Applicants may submit multiple applications over several years in support of the beginning, middle, and concluding stages of one project.

Applications for the following expenditures in connection with a scholarly project will be considered:

1) Research materials (books, films, interview equipment, etc.).

2) Financial assistance for travel to a conference at which the applicant is presenting a paper or project.

3) Financial assistance for travel to archival or library collections.

Applications for other expenses will be accepted if accompanied by a detailed rationale.

The 2016-17 FSG may be applied to expenses which were incurred / will be incurred between July 1, 2016 and May 31, 2017. Successful applicants must provide original receipts for their expenses and the receipts must be submitted along with an Employee Expense and Reimbursement form by June 1, 2017 in order to qualify for reimbursement.

Successful applicants will be required to present their work at a WGS-sponsored research event by October 31 of the academic year following the date of the awarding of the FSG. Thus, an applicant who is awarded a FSG for 2016-17 must present his or her work no later than October 31, 2017.

APPLICATION PROCESS

The FSG 2016-17 deadline isFriday, January 20, 2017. Applications for the FSG will be blind-reviewed by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program’s Steering Committee.

A 1-2 page description of the scholarly project for which the applicant seeks financial assistance, including the stage of completion of the project—is this a new project, a continuation of a project, the conclusion of a project? In addition, this description must include a clear explanation of how the project fulfills the criteria for the FSG as detailed in the opening paragraph above.

The amount of funding sought (up to $500) and a detailed explanation (itemized, when possible) of how the monies will be used to support the scholarly project (e.g., research materials, travel expenses for conference, expenses for travel to archive/library, other).

Completed applications should be sent as a Microsoft Word document to Rosemary Weatherston at weatherr@udmercy.edu. All questions also can be directed to her by email or at 3-1083. Early submissions are encouraged.

Feminist Teaching Grants

Application Guidelines

The University of Detroit Mercy Women’s and Gender Studies Program is now accepting applications for the 2016-17 Feminist Teaching Grants (FTG). These yearly grants of up to $500 are awarded to current full-time, part-time, or adjunct faculty members to support the development of courses that will expand the academic offerings of the University of Detroit Mercy Women’s and Gender Studies Program. The grants reimburse faculty expenditures in this area. Preference will be given to courses that expand the Program’s course offerings in the new Core Curriculum.

The FTG 2016-17 deadline is Friday, January 20, 2017. Applications for the FTG will be evaluated by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program’s Curriculum and Steering Committees.

Proposals should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document and should:

a. Enrich a departmental course that currently is being offered for Women’s and Gender Studies course credit; or

b. Transform an existing departmental course into a course that could be offered for Women’s and Gender Studies course credit; or

c. Create a new departmental course that meets the Women’s and Gender Studies Program Course Criteria (see below)

In this section applicants should also:

Provide a one-paragraph summary of how, specifically, the s/he plans to enrich, transform, or create the WGS course

Indicate the frequency with which s/he, personally, is likely to offer the proposed course (for example, “I currently teach this course once a semester,” or “This course is offered once a year and faculty are free to request it,” or “My Department has already approved the creation of this new course and plans on submitting it to the Curriculum committee. We anticipate it will be taught every second year.”)

Indicate whether the course is currently offered in the new Core curriculum or is being submitted for inclusion in the new Core curriculum

3. Provide a one- to two-page explanation as to how the course will meet the Women’s and Gender Studies Program Course Criteria (see below)

4. Include a requested grant amount and describe how the monies will be used to support the development of the course (e.g., “Funds will be used to purchase the following texts/supplies,” or “Funds will be used to support travel to _________ conference which will enable me to ______.”). Expenses must produce receipts and the receipts must be submitted along with an Employee Expense and Reimbursement Form to the WGS program by June 1, 2017 to qualify for reimbursement.

Completed proposals should be sent to Pat Rouen, Chair of the WGS Curriculum Committee, at rouenpa@udmercy.edu. All questions also can be directed to her by email or at 3-1739. Early submissions are encouraged.

I. Criteria for Approval of Women’s and Gender Studies Courses:

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program is essential to the mission of University of Detroit Mercy, extending the mandate for respect of persons to those traditionally marginalized in society and in the academic pursuit of knowledge. Academic excellence is achieved only when all voices contribute to each discipline.

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program critically examines the place of women and gender in culture and society. Feminist theory is applied to traditional disciplines to analyze the origins and effects of power, dominance, and gender. Since women's and gender issues encompass and modify all areas of knowledge, and since such issues as race, class, and sexuality are crucial aspects of such experiences, the program is necessarily interdisciplinary and multi-cultural.

A. Content Requirements:
Course content must clearly reflect and acquaint students with recent scholarship on feminist theory and women, gender, and/or sexuality. The course syllabus should be composed primarily (75% or more) of works about women, gender, and/or sexuality. If, for historical or disciplinary reasons, the subject of the course precludes this, then the texts used should consistently be put into a dialogue with feminist perspectives.

B. Methodology Requirements:
Each Women's and Gender Studies course should have clear intellectual goals that integrate both the content and issues of the instructor's specific discipline and the overarching concerns of Women's and Gender Studies. For example, a history course entitled "Women in Modern Europe" class might have the primary goals of: 1) enabling students to use gender as a category of analysis in the study of modern European history, and 2) providing students with an understanding of women's roles in and contributions to the social, political, and cultural developments in Europe from the period of the Enlightenment to the present. In addition, WGS courses should critically examine the gender assumptions in the traditional methodologies, theories, and research of particular disciplines and/or explore the production of knowledge in the arts and sciences as it reflects, challenges, or creates cultural assumptions about gender.
As part of the WGS Program’s curriculum, a WGS course should also promote one or more of the Program’s outcomes, advancing students’ abilities to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge of the major concepts and issues of the discipline of Women’s and Gender Studies;
2. Analyze structures of power, dominance, subordination, and gender roles and relations;
3. Recognize the ways in which gender intersects with race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nation, and/or other identity categories; and/or
4. Use this knowledge to reflect critically and thoughtfully upon their own academic, personal, and professional lives, as well as their communities.

C. Pedagogical Requirements:

Women’s and Gender Studies courses should be taught in a way that fosters the empowerment of all students and that equips students to identify and critically analyze gender relations and systems of domination so they can develop their own informed positions on issues raised in the class.

II. Procedure for Approval of Courses in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program

Undergraduate courses taught in all University of Detroit Mercy Colleges and Departments are eligible to be considered for inclusion in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Accepted courses retain their normal departmental prefix and number (for example, “ENL 2360” or “BUS 2480”) but are designated with an attribute in the online schedule as counting for “WOMENS AND GENDER STUDIES MINOR CREDIT.”

Faculty members who wish to offer courses for Women’s and Gender Studies Minor credit should submit their syllabi to the Curriculum Committee. Please contact Pat Rouen at 313-993-1739 / rouenpa@udmercy.edu to arrange the submission of your materials and/or if you have any questions. The members of the Women’s and Gender Studies Curriculum Committee are available for consultation with faculty who are revising or creating courses for Women’s and Gender Studies Minor credit.

Suggested questions to consider when developing course materials:

1. How are women, gender, and/or sexuality studied in this course? Are women treated as objects or subjects of study, or both? If both, how, if at all, is this distinction articulated?
2. Do critical and/or creative works about women, gender, and/or sexuality comprise at least 75% of the required texts? Alternatively, if the subject of the course precludes this, are the texts used put into a dialogue with feminist perspectives?
3. Does the course syllabus reflect familiarity with current feminist research in the appropriate field? How?
4. How does the course apply feminist theories, criticism, or methods to the subject of study? How?
5. If the course is in a particular discipline, are scholarly feminist critiques of that discipline’s traditional perspectives incorporated into the course? How?
6. Do the course requirements encourage students to engage in feminist criticism and/or research? How?
7. Does the course recognize the diversity of women and women’s experience by consciously including that diversity (i.e. women of color, women of developing nations, lesbian women, class issues, as well as Euro-American or European women) or by acknowledging the particular limitations in scope, focus, etc. of the course?
8. What is/are the overarching intellectual goal/s of the course? How do this/these goal/s integrate both the content and issues of the instructor’s specific discipline and the overarching concerns of Women’s and Gender Studies?

Links

Online WGS Resources

The University of Detroit Mercy web site provides links to other web sites, both public and private, for informational purposes. The inclusion of these links on University of Detroit Mercy's site does not imply endorsement by the University.

Program Mission

The Women's and Gender Studies faculty and program at University of Detroit Mercy have always been firmly committed to issues of social justice, equity, and the recognition and examination of underrepresented and disadvantaged peoples. Drawing upon this commitment, the Women's and Gender Studies Minor will work with its students to prepare them for a life committed to the integration of intellect, spirit, ethics, and social development. While the minor will aid students in their own personal integration of these fundamental aspects of a fully human experience, the nature of the courses required for the minor will likewise prepare students to seek out and create opportunities for such integration of their academic, personal, and professional lives, as well as in their communities. The WGS Minor will aid students in their understanding of differences among the people of the world, of differences of race, ethnicity, religion, culture, gender, and class by exposing them to such differences and by teaching them the techniques of critical thinking by which stereotypes and inequalities are exposed. The minor will graduate students eager to model and enact the integration of intellectual pursuits with pursuing and enacting beneficial change.